1. Every hanging corpse is in poor taste.
2. FreeDoom is not a joke wad so I do not think it really fits in any theme. However if you wanted to replace one of the hanging corpses, I could go with that, but I doubt that the users of whichever corpse you replace would agree as it really changes the intent.
3. Unless Keen is a hanging corpse, it is not compatible with existing uses of Keen in PWAD.
4. Is Keen supposed to be hanging corpse ?? I have never figured out what Keen was supposed to be, and always thought we had a strange placeholder.
5. Interesting, but I do not know what to do with it. Every character already has an appearance and usage that must be kept to maintain compatibility with exiting PWAD uses.

Keen was just a simple joke cameo in Doom 2. Freedoom doesn't have anything to build on for the same "intent", but the cartoon cat Sodaholic made definitely fits with the theme of the original. I don't even know if any PWADs use keen...

chungy said:Keen was just a simple joke cameo in Doom 2. Freedoom doesn't have anything to build on for the same "intent", but the cartoon cat Sodaholic made definitely fits with the theme of the original. I don't even know if any PWADs use keen...

BlastEm2 by Russell Pearson uses the Keens in their original form, complete with associated linedef action. Thomas van der Velden's Revolution! also uses the Keens, but supplies its own replacement graphics and sounds for them, so that doesn't really count...

To save us much searching, how about some clues as to where to find it in Doom2 and how does it work. I may have seen it a long long time ago but I do not remember, and probably thought it was an bug.
It is a hanging Keen-on-a-rope ??
Sounds like the player can shoot it, and it animates ??

True, I was just concerned with it being considered such due to it being a cat.

wesleyjohnson said:2. FreeDoom is not a joke wad so I do not think it really fits in any theme. However if you wanted to replace one of the hanging corpses, I could go with that, but I doubt that the users of whichever corpse you replace would agree as it really changes the intent.

It would be absolutely stupid to replace one of the normal hanging corpses with this. I understand that Freedoom is not a jokewad, but the resource this is meant to replace is itself a joke. I mean, we didn't replace John Romero's head on a stick with something serious, we just changed it to Richard Stallman's head on a stick instead. Likewise, with this Commander Keen on a rope replacement, this is another 8-bit cartoon character on a rope instead, as I'm trying to stay within the same theme. Likewise with the sounds, the original sounds were FM Adlib sound effects, so I made a pseudo-retro like set of sounds to go along with this cat.

wesleyjohnson said:3. Unless Keen is a hanging corpse, it is not compatible with existing uses of Keen in PWAD.

Umm... Keen is a hanging corpse... I even made sure the alignment was the same.

wesleyjohnson said:4. Is Keen supposed to be hanging corpse ?? I have never figured out what Keen was supposed to be, and always thought we had a strange placeholder.

Yes, Keen is supposed to be a hanging corpse. The whole point of this graphic is to have an actual graphic for the Keen replacement and not just the black "graphic not yet done!" box that all currently unreplaced graphics use.

wesleyjohnson said:5. Interesting, but I do not know what to do with it. Every character already has an appearance and usage that must be kept to maintain compatibility with exiting PWAD uses.

Just implement these graphics, there's no currently existing graphics for Keen, just the placeholder boxes. You don't need to worry about overwriting anything that doesn't even exist in the first place.

I wanted this to be compatible with PWAD uses, and that's why I made this in the same theme as the original.

WildWeasel said:BlastEm2 by Russell Pearson uses the Keens in their original form, complete with associated linedef action. Thomas van der Velden's Revolution! also uses the Keens, but supplies its own replacement graphics and sounds for them, so that doesn't really count...

Yeah, there are several mods that feature replacement for the Keen graphics and sounds. They become some sort of crystal fuses in Perdition's Gate (or was it Hell to Pay?); they're also used in Epic 2 for a few puzzle scenes (you don't see them, you have to shoot rockets at certain openings to destroy them). That's the two I remember on the top of my head, but there are plenty more.

I guess here I don't really see the point of keeping up the 8-bit cameo joke. Besides, if you want to keep the "theme" of the Doom II Keen, an original character won't fit. I suppose if you go with the Stallman on a stick, you could use some free mascot, like Tux, Wilber or Beastie. Otherwise, you could as well make something AGM-themed that could be used in Freedoom maps without making them look like a joke.

This is all your own work, right? You drew the cat and the rope yourself?

This is a completely original character, right? It's not a depiction of a cat from a cartoon, video game, webcomic, or anything like that?

I'm sure the answer to these is both "yes", but I felt like I ought to ask because the cat looks like it's familiar somehow. Though I suspect it's just because it's a generic cartoon cat of the kind I've seen 1000 times before.

Played through BlastEm. I do not remember ever seeing Keen like those before.
If I had seen that in Doom2, I would have expected that the Keens must not be shot.
Would have thought that it was a trick level where you must only shoot the monsters and not shoot the Keens.
Probably erased it from my memory as a bad level, not to be revisited.

Before this becomes a done deal already, some points.

1. Isn't the player supposed to be the "Good Guy", so shouldn't he be rescuing the cat, not blasting into giblets a fellow victim of the monsters.
Could have the shots hit the rope, with the cat dropping to the ground (rescued). Would be a change from having to kill everything.

2. You could make the cat rabid or demonized with glowing red eyes or something. Avoid the problem of it looking like it victim that must not be shot.

3. Make the cat moldy with green splotches. Like an undead cat.
Fits in with the zombie soldiers.

4. Make the blood green ?? or put some green splotches in it.
That would confirm that player made right decision in shooting the cat.

wesleyjohnson said:Played through BlastEm. I do not remember ever seeing Keen like those before.
If I had seen that in Doom2, I would have expected that the Keens must not be shot.
Would have thought that it was a trick level where you must only shoot the monsters and not shoot the Keens.
Probably erased it from my memory as a bad level, not to be revisited.

One of the points of the Keens in Map32 is that you're killing a custy thing with your weapons. Trying to make it look "evil" defeats the entire point of the graphic in the first place. It's not some moral decision like you're making out to be; it's a gag.

The shootable Keen easter egg was basically Adrian Carmack's way of reinforcing that Doom is supposed to be a dark and serious game, and a way of saying "fuck you" to Commander Keen and cutesy things in general.

Darkman 4 said:Trying to make it look "evil" defeats the entire point of the graphic in the first place. It's not some moral decision like you're making out to be; it's a gag.